Information Scotland The Journal of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland ISSN 1743-5471 Issue contents | Journal contents | About the online edition of the journal October 2005 Volume 3 (5)

ICT: Resources

Detecting resources

Digital content providing a unique, personal record of the impact of the Second World War in Scottish communities – from accounts collected by children – is accessible via a new website created by SLIC as part of ‘Their Past Your Future Scotland’, Hazel lauder explains.

Primary school children are being encouraged to become wartime sleuths as part of War Detectives – a countrywide initiative designed to prompt young people in Scotland to learn more about the experiences of living and working during the Second World War. War Detectives is part of the Big Lottery Fund’s ‘Their Past Your Future’ scheme, which in Scotland is being managed by a consortium of the Scottish Museums Council (SMC), the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC) and Learning and Teaching Scotland (LTS).

Young people have been exploring the experience of the Second World War, getting first hand accounts by interviewing local veterans and people who lived through the war. These reminiscences and historical artefacts are being digitised and will be available through the project website, providing a unique, personal and accessible record of the impact of the Second World War in Scottish communities.

12 organisations from across the country were awarded up to £10,000 funding to record the wartime experience of their community. Projects are being led by public library services, primary schools and Cultural Co-ordinators within Councils. SLIC has created a project website and digital content has been added to the site and will continue to be added until early 2006. The site retells the experience of people who lived through the war and includes tales of ordinary people missing their fathers, being evacuees and serving in the forces.

The material includes films of interviews with older people, PowerPoint presentations and photographs. As the project is relatively small-scale the project does not use a content management system. The access versions of resources are stored as part of the site’s HTML structure, while the original files are stored on CD-Rom. Before the resources are added to the site, photographs and videos are compressed for web delivery. As the contributors are principally schools and are likely to have access to broadband quality internet, the video files are compressed to around 1MB per minute Quicktime files; this provides a relatively small file size while retaining a good degree of quality.

Some of the submissions have included Word documents with photographs. These have been converted to HTML with an attempt to retain the original layout created by the schools. To maximise loading times, some of the documents have been split into parts so that they should be accessible to dial-up users. In creating the site SLIC has worked to accessibility guidelines, this has included making sure that all images include descriptive alt tags and that transcriptions are available for all video files.

Copyright is a major issue for all digitisation projects and the project is interested in using a Creative Commons (CC) licence for the material on the site. There is now a Scotland specific CC licence.

The project has had a big impact on participants; one Head Teacher has commented: “It is wonderful to see the children develop not only their IT skills but their inter-personal skills and sense of place. They have come to value the past and the sacrifices that people made.”

SLIC has also been working with organisations which received Big Lottery Fund grants for projects to commemorate World War II and intends to make some of the resources created by these projects available through the website. Digital content will continue to be added to the website and the site will be a unique educational resource for future generations.

Their Past Your Future Scotland includes a unique touring exhibition and events programme, giving people the opportunity to visit a special exhibition developed by the Imperial War Museum, as well as the chance to participate in a broad range of events and activities across the country. SLIC manages the project website which includes an events calendar as well as details about the traveling exhibition.

Hazel Lauder, Service Development Manager, Scottish Library & Information Council.
Penny Robertson, Information Officer, Scottish Library & Information Council.

Information Scotland Vol. 3 (5) October 2005

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